


Tranquility

by unkissed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:24:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2252331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unkissed/pseuds/unkissed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I will always be there to help you pick up the pieces and reassemble them when you fall apart in my arms upon waking in the middle of the night.  But I’m growing weary of the aftermath of dreams – of the brutality that ensues.  For you may bear the mental scars, but I wear the physical ones.  You can only bruise a masochist so much before you begin to break him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tranquility

**Author's Note:**

> For Draco with the Dior cufflinks.

Tranquility comes at a price.

How much are you willing to pay for the luxury of a quiet mind? Would you divest your vault of its gold? Would you empty your cache of deeply buried memories? What would you give for one night of dreamless sleep?

Nothing. Therein lies the problem. It isn’t that you’re too selfish or too stubborn to pay the price. You just don’t want to make that purchase. You think you don’t deserve peace. 

No level of the Wizengamut has ever convicted you, but you have tried yourself in the court of your own conscience and found yourself guilty of every charge. And you’ve sentenced yourself to carry the burden of guilt for eternity. You take your punishment every night in the underworld of tortured dreams.

Perhaps you don’t believe you are entitled to rest without being plagued by nightmares. Maybe you think you still deserve your nocturnal torment. But I watch you suffer and it brings me no satisfaction, even though some of your worst crimes had been enacted upon me without provocation. So to whom are you offering your nightly penance? Whose justice are you serving? Certainly not mine.

I’ve forgiven you. It’s time to forget the past. You need to let go, Draco. For me.

I’m so tired.

I’m tired of watching the agony quivering beneath your closed eyelids and the anguish creasing your brow. I’m tired of listening to the pained whimpers and unintelligible, terrified mumbling. Witnessing your pain and your fear hurts me more than you ever could while conscious.

I will always be there to help you pick up the pieces and reassemble them when you fall apart in my arms upon waking in the middle of the night. But I’m growing weary of the aftermath of dreams – of the brutality that ensues. For you may bear the mental scars, but I wear the physical ones. You can only bruise a masochist so much before you begin to break him.

Do you know what I dream of? I dream of love without obligation, of sex without angst. I dream of being fragile without you needing to shatter me in order to feel whole. I dream that affection isn’t a double-edged blade that cuts with every kiss. I dream of us. I dream of what we should be – what we could be, if only you’d forgive yourself the way everyone already has. 

Tomorrow I want to wake up to find your blackened history has been erased. But would I be erased along with all of your transgressions? Perhaps. For am I not your greatest sin?

I am willing to take the risk that I’d lose you. That is the price I would pay for your tranquility.

And so I give you this gift – the gift of time rewound. Turn back to a time before war and crippling fear. Before dark stains on arms and specky boys with scars. Before there were secrets in the garden and innocence was lost. Before a motherless, weedy child with cerulean eyes came to your house with every intention to hate you. Before fate had a chance to twine our souls together.


End file.
